Like Walking in Deep Sand

It was a glorious sunny morning, so my husband and I decided to forego our indoor ice skating plans and instead head for the woods.  We weren't in the mood for too much company out there, which means we headed to Baltimore Woods.  I had hoped they would be renting snow shoes since my husband doesn't have any, but their office is closed on Sundays.  So, in solidarity, I agreed to walk with him instead of snow shoeing myself.

Ow.  We did not get as much snow here as folks in New England, but there is probably about a foot on the ground at Baltimore Woods. And while it's been traveled and packed down some, it's still fairly deep and squashy. It turns out that walking in such stuff is a lot like walking on a beach through deep soft sand. Your feet kind of slide out every which way, and it's absurdly laborious. I WORKED for the three miles we walked!  Given that I went sledding on Saturday and can barely move my arms after all the effort to keep myself on the inner tube, I figure by tomorrow every inch of me will be in agony.

But I admit it was absolutely delicious to be out in sunshine today.  It was warm enough that all I needed was a light jacket, and at times that was too much.   For the first time in months I was really in the mood to use my camera, because there's little that gives better contrast than sunshine in winter.  I simply love all the shadows on the snow, contrasted with the almost blinding whiteness.  The textures of the snow are amazing too.

I also love how incredibly intense the few flashes of color are.  My eye just gets grabbed by the little bits of color, because they seem magnified by being surrounded by whiteness.

 

Anyway, it was a lovely if laborious walk, with good company and my trusty camera.  Sunshine, it was so nice to see you!

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Easter Colored Treasure Hunt

Today's blissful warmth, sunshine and breeze brought us outside early on a trip to Baltimore Woods for another of my weekly wildflower watches.  Given that it's Easter weekend, I felt much like I was on an Easter egg hunt as I scanned the ground for hidden treasures.  And find treasures we did!

First, our friends.  This little fellow is just a bitty baby.  He was sunning himself in one of the upper gardens, and measured only perhaps 5 1/2 inches.

How can anyone resist a face like this?

My attention was soon drawn to a spot of bright red under the leaves.  When I moved aside a couple of the leaves, I spotted a scarlet cup, with this collection of critters on it:

I recognize the millipedes (yick - I don't know why but centipedes and millipedes give me the heebie jeebies), but don't know what the cute green bug is.  Perhaps I shall go sit outside on the swing and look him up.

These marks were all along the water's edge.  I suspect they were made my some variety of worm or other?  They looked very artistic:

On to the wildflowers.  It's incredible how much flowers can grow in a week!

Hepatica, with its variety of colors and fuzzy stems:

Bloodroot, still wrapped tightly in its blanket of leaves as if it's afraid to trust that the warmth will last:

Spring beauty.  I adore its smart little stripes, and particularly love the bright pink anthers on the second photo.  They look like delicate pink slippers:

Soon-to-be trillium, which have appeared out of nowhere in the last week.  I love to speculate about which color each will turn out to be:

Myrtle:

Colts foot.  I love the tiny little yellow flower in the center of the, well, flower.

And the Daphne has grown a great deal in the last week, too (thanks, Ellen, for the ID!):

And then the much less intoxicatingly lovely yet still fascinating skunk cabbage:

All-in-all, it was a spectacularly beautiful Saturday walk, and the flower colors are just irresistibly festive.

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More signs of spring

It's been a crazy week following a crazy weekend, so I haven't much time for either blogging or collecting blog material.  That's quite okay with me, though, as the forecast for this coming weekend looks positively glorious, and I've been slogging through another cold, gray rainy week riding high on the promise of back-to-back 18 hour days of sunshine outside this weekend.  

I don't much care what we do on Saturday and Sunday so long as it's outside.  We've tossed around ideas as wide ranging as massive yard work, vacuuming the detritus of winter and about a pound of trail mix out of the footwells of my car (best not to ask), bike rides, hikes, jogging, or just sitting and roasting our bones in the sun.  Any of those is fine with me.  Seventy five degrees and sunny!   Bliss.  With the promise of that kind of deliciousness ahead, I can endure nearly anything this week, so long as it doesn't interfere with my weekend.

As an aside, I am generally very concerned about global warming and watch the changes in my climate with mounting anxiety.  I confess, though, that at the moment I care not a smidge if 75 degrees is unseasonably warm for the start of April.  Bring it on!  I shall resume caring once I stop shivering.

Although there was little time for fun last weekend, on Sunday morning we darted out to Baltimore Woods for a quick look at the wildflower gardens to see if anything else had sprung.  There wasn't much change from the previous weekend as far as flowers go.  I only have one flowering shrub to add to the list of blooms at Baltimore Woods.  This gem was positively glowing at the entrance of the trail:

I don't know what it is, and don't have a flowering shrub book to look it up in.  The most exasperating thing is that there was an identification sign.  Right there.  In front of the shrub.  I even read it, and informed my husband that I needed to remember the name of the plant.  I made a mistake of not photographing the sign, and now have zero recollection of what this lovely shrub is.

I shall have to make a mental note to check the sign this weekend.  Let's hope the mental note to check the sign will be more effective than the one I made regarding the name of the plant.  Sometimes I feel like a squirrel diligently hiding nuts all over the yard - I make so many mental notes that I can't possibly keep track of any of them.

In a slightly more sheltered area, the hepatica is making a brave leafy showing in a few spots, although it didn't have any blossoms yet.  Surely next weekend there will be some flowers.

Do you remember this little patch from my post last weekend?

There were probably half a dozen clumps just like it.  Here's how they've progressed in just one week:

Although it's no kudzu, that's still a lot of new plant cells in roughly 168 hours.  They'll probably shoot up an alarming amount in 75 degree warmth and sun this coming weekend.  In fact, they're probably shooting up right now, as I type, even though it's still chilly.

Although it is still cold, the rain dried up sometime in the course of the day and the clouds were starting to break up this evening, giving a teasing glimpse of the glory that is allegedly to follow.  Just two more work days to endure...

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Spring is Springing

In celebration of the first day of spring, I ventured to Baltimore Woods. Ordinarily I wouldn't have expected to find any wildflowers this early, even at Baltimore Woods which is spring wildflower central.  But this past week has been so extraordinarily warm that I decided there was a chance some brave flowers had already emerged, and I wasn't going to risk missing them.

Baltimore Woods has a wildflower garden that's just wonderful in the spring.  It doesn't look like a garden,

but it is.  Most of the wildflowers that fill this area have been carefully transplanted from elsewhere in Baltimore Woods and are now thriving side by side, in greater concentration than you'd normally see.  In a few weeks it will be filled to the brim with trillium, spring beauty, bloodroot, trout lilies, mayapples, and Solomon's seal, and more.

For the most part, it's still too early.  There was even still some snow hanging out in the glens and shaded spots, 

and very few flowers were out.  I did find one little patch of croci that's been planted in the garden beds in one of the upper fields.

A few steps further, just into the woods, I spotted one brave myrtle flower.

Although there were few flowers, throughout the spring wildflower beds there were signs of emerging life.  Hidden little patches of young greenness were poking through the soft earth and spearing their way through the dead leaves.

I was utterly disappointed not to see any coltsfoot in the upper gardens, though.  I figured for sure there must be some out somewhere.  So I decided I would have to extend my walk further and meander down the big hill to access the rest of the trails.  

Normally that wouldn't be a big deal, but today it should be a sign of my dedication to my coltsfoot quest that I mustered the will power to walk down the hill.  My husband and I are on a major fitness kick to get ourselves back into mountain climbing shape, and I endured a session with my trainer yesterday.  The man is wonderful; he's an incredibly competent trainer and a very likable person.  It's a darn good thing, too, because I think I'd probably hate anyone less likable, given how much pain I'm in today.  Actually, it's not even the pain, it's the fact that my legs feel like jell-o, and I sort of had to wobble and lurch my way down the steep hill, gritting my teeth against the burning in my quads and hoping they wouldn't just give out altogether.  

The agony was worth it, though.  Down the hill, around a few bends, and half way up another hill, and voila!  My first coltsfoot sighting of spring:

Baltimore Woods has one spot that I have to visit every spring, or it just doesn't feel like it's been spring. There's a little wooded glade that is bursting with myrtle, and it was oozing with charm today.  After wandering through woods that are almost entirely still brown, the lush shiny myrtle green is rich and inviting.

In a few weeks it will be peppered with purple flowers.  

I'm not the only one who finds the spot enchanting.  As I stood and enjoyed the green, a young mother and six girls ranging from about 6 to 14 walked by.  The girls oohed and aahed over the spot, and exclaimed that it must be magic.  I chuckled to myself when the mother worried aloud that it was poison ivy, and alleviated her fears.

I found a few other treasures in my wanderings, including some wonderful critter prints in the mud along the streams.  There were lots of raccoon prints, some fox (coyote?), and some opossum prints.

It was about this point in my walk that I had an argument with my camera, so most of my footprint shots didn't turn out very well.  I hate it when I hit something on the camera and can't figure out what the heck I did to it.  When my husband is with me I usually just hand it to him in exasperation and he fixes it, which means I haven't learned how to do it myself.  It took me a good fifteen minutes of fiddling to discover I'd somehow changed the aperture, which I didn't even know I could do in the mode I had the camera in.  Live and learn.

These two sets had me a little stumped.  Anyone want to weigh in?  This first set is tiny, at only about 3/4 of an inch wide.  Could they be weasel?

And I don't know what made these.  It seems like maybe there are only 4 toes, but perhaps I'm looking at them wrong?  Is the scrape through the middle a coincidence, or from a belly, or a tail?  

The best part of today's walk, though, were the twenty minutes I spent sitting peacefully on a bench in the sun, perfectly warm in a long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans.  I always forget how delicious it is to be able to sit still in the woods this time of year.  One doesn't freeze or get soaked from sitting in snow, and the mosquitoes aren't out yet.  I sat still and listened to chickadees chirping in the branches over my head, a downy woodpecker tapping on the tree a few feet away, and a junco rustling in the leaves behind me.  Several flocks of Canada geese honked their way over me, too, and the nearby stream gurgled deliciously.  Ah, spring!  How nice it is to see you.

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